Walker's Winter Outlook 2012-2013

Volcanic activity worldwide: You may say what does a volcano half way around the world have to do with our weather? That's a good and reasonable question but remember that the "weather" travels worldwide and is impacted by things many thousands of miles away ( such as La Nina way out in the Pacific Ocean ). Let me give you an example: On April 10th, 1815 there was a major eruption of the volcano Tambora in Indonesia. The year that followed ( 1816 ) is known as "the year without a summer." That summer there was frost here in the Midwest and even snow in the Great Lakes and New England and this was caused by a volcano eruption thousands of miles away. We did have a couple of notable eruptions in the last three years. One was in Iceland back in 2010 and then later in 2010 a pretty major eruption happened in Indonesia. I believe a volcano eruption in the southern latitudes such as in Indonesia will have a bigger impact on weather patterns than one in the more northern latitudes. Depending on the amount of ash being thrown into the atmosphere and depending on how high into the atmosphere it reached, will determine any impact on weather patterns. The impacts from those eruptions can be felt for around 3 – 5 years so this needed to be factored into the outlook.